


nothing sweeter

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Series: Hockey RPF Tumblr Prompts [26]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 5 Headcanons Prompt, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 16:25:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14109357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: This is not the Sidney he has come to know. This is the lord of the underworld, in his robes of office, heavy, rich, pitch black as night save the ornate embroideries of gold at the hems. There’s a diadem of onyx on his brow, flashing in the light, pointed shards of stone that make Sidney’s face underneath them look all the more stern and alien. Geno shivers.Anonymous asked:Mythology AU pls?Light angst in one scene (child’s death alluded to, not mentioned or described at all)





	1. Chapter 1

1.“This shall be put to rights,” Sidney promises, and Geno looks at the tight set of his mouth, and believes him. “The council of the gods is in three months. I’ll go to Olympus then. Until that time, I cannot leave my duties here. I am sorry.” He is stiff, and his skin is as marble-pale as Geno would have imagined the lord of the underworld to be. His eyes though, are gold-and-green. They make Geno think of home, and he looks away, wondering how he will manage here. He’d like to drag Alex down here by the hair, see how he likes it.

“Thank you,” he says to Sidney, in a tone that holds no thanks at all.

2\. It’s cold below. The chambers Sidney brings him to contain a bed piled with furs, and finely wrought charcoal braziers sending out welcoming warmth and sweet perfume from the incense sprinkled among their coals. Geno looks around, at the carvings all along the walls, and at the pristine white sheepskins that soften the marble floors. “I hope this will be alright,” Sidney says, strange and stilted. Geno thinks maybe that is just his way. It’s almost amusing. Lord of Hades, and so ill at ease.

“Whose chambers are these?” Geno asks idly, not really caring about the answer.

“Mine,” Sidney says, and leaves Geno there, staring after him.

 

 

3\. “What—” Geno says, eyeing the odd boots Sidney is holding. Something like a dagger’s edge is attached to each sole.

“Ah,” Sidney says, and looks down at them. “I was about to— well, just come see.”  Bored, Geno follows Sidney to the shores of a lake, fringed with trees and the ever present asphodels. Sidney kneels at the water’s edge and expends his hand over the surface. At first nothing happens, and then Geno sees ice bloom out over the water.   
When the entire lake is solid, Sidney turns back to him, a smile curving his lips. Geno watches him as he slides on the boots and wobbles to his feet, balancing on the thin metal edge. Geno is about to catch at his arm and steady him when Sidney steps out onto the ice and he—

He flies. And it takes Geno’s breath away. “Teach me,” he begs, when Sidney at last loops back along the shore Geno is standing on.

“Gladly,” Sidney says, and Geno nearly cannot bear to meet his bright, smiling eyes.

 

 

4\. Geno has been the underworld’s unwilling guest for a month before he first sees Sidney at his duties. He’s wandering, down one corridor and up another, when he finds himself in the shadows of a great columade, lining a hall that in its magnificence cannot be other than the hall of judgement. And from where he is hidden he can see Sidney, and he trembles, because he thought he knew him, he thought he’d understood this odd, stiff being who quietly gave way to Geno in most things.

This is not the Sidney he has come to know. This is the lord of the underworld, in his robes of office, heavy, rich, pitch black as night save the ornate embroideries of gold at the hems. There’s a diadem of onyx on his brow, flashing in the light, pointed shards of stone that make Sidney’s face underneath them look all the more stern and alien. Geno shivers.

One of Sidney’s servants brings in a mortal man, iron chains about his legs clinking dully on the floor. Geno’s face twists. He can smell the stink of corruption on him. Here in the underworld the foul deeds the man committed in life hang about him like a wretched miasma. The servant intones the man’s sins. He’d been a king, a tyrant who’d meted out untold suffering and torment upon his subjects.

Sid’s face is terrible to behold. He rises, and the man shrinks back, pleading and wailing, but Sidney only extends his hand, pointing directly at him.

“You,” he says, and like his face, the timbre of his voice is awful and terrible. “No mercy did you show your people, not once did you listen to their cries, but instead ground them under your heel like so much dust. Likewise you shall also hear no answer to your pleas.” Sidney moves his hand, and the man is taken away. Geno watches Sid’s face, sees grief appear alongside the wrath. Geno feels as if he should be kneeling, nearly folds himself down upon the cold marble floors.

A second servant appears, and at first Geno thinks they are alone, but then he sees the child, clinging to the servant’s hand, tiny, and shaking like a tender spring leaf in a gale. And Sidney—

Sidney’s face softens, sorrow flooding his eyes. He throws off the heavy cloak he wears, lays his diadem on the seat of the throne behind him. He walks down from the dais and kneels in from of the child, taking her thin, trembling hands in his own.

“Don’t be afraid, little one,” Sidney tells her, and his words are so gentle Genos feels as if his heart would break. Sidney reaches out and tucks a strand of the child’s hair behind her ear. “What is your name?” he asks her. Whatever she says is too soft for Geno to hear, but he hears Sidney respond: “Oh, how pretty. Have you heard of the Elysian fields, my darling? Good, good. It’s lovely there, nothing to hurt or frighten you ever again.” He looks up at the servant. “Has she family there?”

“A grandmother,” the servant replies, and Sidney nods.

“Send for her,” he says and the servant leaves to do his bidding. Sidney continues to talk to the child, and by the time the servant returns, an older woman in tow, Sidney is sitting in his throne with the child in his lap, letting her play with the sparking stones of his diadem and listening earnestly to whatever childish story she is lisping at him.

When the child sees her grandmother she lets out a happy cry and reaches out. Sidney carries her over and puts her into her grandmother’s arms. Geno watches Sidney watch her go, and feels like the pain on Sidney’s face is flaying him open. Geno leaves the hall, and as he goes, realizes his face is wet with tears.

 

 

5\. In the end, the decision is easy. Geno picks the ruby-red pomegranate seeds from their yellow pith, and regards them for a moment, as they lay on his palm like jewels.

“Geno, what are you doing, stop—” Sidney says, but before he can be stopped Geno eats them, the juice bursting sweet-tart upon his tongue.

“Geno,” Sidney breathes, despair in his tone, but Geno just smiles, and leans forward, and kisses him. Sidney’s lips are soft and lush, and the kiss tastes of pomegranate.

“Oh,” Sidney breathes, wonder dawning in his eyes. “Oh.”

Geno smiles, and draws him in to kiss him again.


	2. Mythology AU Snippet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This actually was written before the 5 headcanons prompt fill.

It’s not fair of him, he thinks. It’s selfishness. He existed, if not lived, exactly, before. Before him, before everything. He could survive without him. He should survive without him. He has no right to keep, to claim. None. **  
**

But in the midst of his swirling doubt and self-recrimination he remembers how Geno’s soft lips closed on the ruby-bright pomegranate seeds, eyes dark and knowing as he looked straight into Sidney’s.

The cave mouth is empty, everything beyond it still, save for a restless wind that occasionally sends a gust inside to curl against the cave wall and tug at Sidney’s cloak. A bitter edge to it, but not yet the knife sharp cold of winter.

Sidney watches the pale light of the autumn sun slide across the cave’s sandy floor as the day wears on, and thinks, it would be best, maybe, if he didn’t come. If he’d either forgotten or thought better of entombing himself in the underworld again. With Sidney.

Sidney twists the stems of the handful of asphodels he’d foolishly brought and tries to ignore the yawning chasm of despair that idea opens up within him.

Asphodels. Pale, unearthly things. Nothing fit for someone like Geno, with his warm brown eyes and his wide smile and his booming laugh.

Sidney lets the flowers flutter into his lap and rests his forehead in his hands. He will bear this. He has to bear this. Life will continue, even if Geno does not return. He can be strong enough, he hopes.

The scuff of sandaled feet against rock makes him lift his head, heart thunderous in his ears. A tall figure stands silhouetted against the red of the sunset outside, and Sid let out an involuntary cry as he starts to his feet, flowers falling from his lap.

Geno crosses the distance between them in two strides and catches Sidney up in his arms. His skin is so, so warm, and he smells of summer and sunlight, and of growing things.

“Sidney,” he says fervently, and his arms tighten even more. “Gods, I missed you.”

Sidney can’t trust himself to speak, so he just holds on to Geno, the ruler of all the underworld shaking to pieces in the arms of a minor local harvest god.

When he finds words again they’re  just a broken litany of Geno’s name.  

“Sid,” Geno answers him tenderly, then presses kisses to Sidney’s hair and temple. Then his eyes, and the bridge of his nose and finally, finally, his mouth.

“Oh, Sid,” Geno says, drawing back to gently wipe the tears now coursing down Sid’s cheeks. “Beloved. Did you not think that I would come back to you?”

“I wouldn’t have blamed you, had you not” Sid says, and Geno scowls.

“Hear me, Sidney,” Geno says, cupping Sid’s face in his hands. Sidney stares up at him, all sun-gilded skin and summer heat. “I will always,  _always_  return to you.”

Sid closes his eyes and nods, reaching up to lay his hands over Geno’s. “And I’ll always be waiting.”

“Good,” Geno rumbles, drawing Sid’s head to his shoulder and wrapping his arms around him again. “Now. The hour is late. Take me home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Un beta'd. 
> 
> Title is from "Work Song" by Hozier
> 
> You can find me as [creaturesofnarrative ](http://creaturesofnarrative.tumblr.com/) (main) and [knifeshoeoreofight](http://knifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com/) (hockey blog, where I'm most active) on Tumblr, and as @RainyForecast on Twitter. Come say hi!


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